2.  Our text.  The two covenants are to be taken figuratively, Paul says. There’s a meaning beyond the obvious, literal meaning here.  Jamieson, Fausset & Brown: “Paul was familiar with the district of Sinai in Arabia (Gal 1:17), having gone there after his conversion. At the gloomy scene of the giving of the Law, he learned to appreciate, by contrast, the grace of the Gospel, and so to cast off all his past legal dependencies.”  “What advantage has the Jew?” Romans 3:1-2.

3. Promise 2090 B.C. Law 1445 B.C. A full grasp of God’s grace AbrahamMosesJesus  Remember Galatians 3:15? “Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.”

4. HAGAR/SINAISARAH/JERUSALEM “For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel,” Hebrews 12:18-24.

5.  “For it is written: ‘Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.’” Quoted from Isaiah 54:1.  The Jerusalem above is the mother of us all (Vs 26). All believers.

6.  28 “Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise.”  Is it a miracle that you were saved, or simply a decision you made?  Don’t say it was both.  29 “At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.”  Here I again infer that Paul indeed, despite the danger, surely considered them in the faith.  The Judaizers were persecuting the true seed.  30 “But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”  God does not make a covenant based on works. It will NOT be mingled.  Get rid of the idea and perhaps the Judaizers among you.  Purge out the old leaven. Paul had this similar instruction for Corinth. 1 Corinthians 5:6-7.  31 “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”

7.  Paul is telling the Galatians how to be right with God.  Guzik reminds us how this is the most important thing. If you’re right with God then He’ll teach you how to improve your marriage, your life, etc. “Seek first…” what? Matthew 6:33.  We are not children of Hagar, right?  Liberty can become a bondage.  Christians are sons with an inheritance, remember?  “A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,” John 8:35-36.  You are freed to become slaves again. Romans 6:16. This is not the kind of slavery mentioned earlier.  Labor to know that you know why you’re saved.  Cast out the bondwoman in your own life.  “Significantly, Sarah could live with Hagar and Ishmael until the son of promise was born. But once Isaac was born, then Hagar and Ishmael had to go. In the same way, a person could relate to the law one way before the promise of the gospel was made clear in Jesus Christ. But now that it has been made clear, there is nothing to do but to cast out the bondwoman and her son.” - Guzik.

8. See you next week. Invite a friend.